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Updated: Feb 1, 2026

Production and Targeting of Monovalent Quantum Dots
Published on: October 23, 2014
Understanding the size effect of graphene quantum dots on protein adsorption
Mengdi Zhou1, Qiyin Shen1, Jia-Wei Shen1
1School of Medicine, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou 310016, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
Due to the unique structural and mechanical properties, graphene quantum dots (GQDs) are considered as potential candidates in the field of biosensors, bioimaging, and drug delivery etc. In this work, the adsorption of protein villin headpiece (HP35) on GQDs with different sizes was investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. The simulation results identified the key role of the π-π stacking interactions between the aromatic residues of HP35 and GQDs as the binding site. More importantly, with the increase of GQD size, the amount and binding strength of adsorbed residues increase, and sequentially enhance the structure change of adsorbed protein, verified by various analysis of protein structures etc. These findings may improve the understanding of the cytotoxicity and biosafety of GQDs, and hence promote the design and application of GQDs-based biomedical devices.
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The Dot Product
Dot Product
In engineering, the dot product of any two vectors is the product of the magnitudes of the vectors and the cosine of the angle between them. It is denoted by a dot symbol between the two vectors.
Consider a vehicle pulling an object along the ground using a rope. If the rope makes an angle with the horizontal axis, the work done can be calculated using the dot product of the force applied and the object's displacement.
The dot...

